rd to my newspaper. Any more of them
dreadful smashes?'

'No, Sam, thank Heaven, there have been no railway accidents.'

'Ah, we shall have 'em in August and September,' said the old man,
cheerily. 'They're bound to come then. There's a time for all things,
as Solomon says. When the season comes t'smashes all coom. And no more
of these mysterious murders, I suppose, which baffle t'police and keep
me awake o' nights thinking of 'em.'

'Surely you do not take delight in murder, Mr. Barlow?' said Hammond.

'No, sir, I do not wish my fellow-creatures to mak' awa' wi' each other;
but if there is a murder going in the papers I like to get the benefit
of it. I like to sit in front of my fire of an evening and wonder about
it while I smoke my pipe, and fancy I can see the murderer hiding in a
garret in an out-of-the-way alley, or as a stowaway on board a gert
ship, or as a miner deep down in a coalpit, and never thinking that even
there t'police can track him. Did you ever hear tell o' Mr. de Quincey,
sir?'

'I believe I have read every line he ever wrote.'

'Ah, you should have heard him talk about murders. It would have made
you dream queer dreams, just as he did. He lived for years in the white
cottage that Wordsworth once lived in, just behind the street yonder--a
nice, neat, lile gentleman, in a houseful of books. I've had many a talk
with him when I was a young man.'

'And how old may you he now, Mr. Barlow?'

'Getting on for eighty four, sir.'

'But you are not the oldest man in Grasmere, I should say, by twenty
years?'

'I don't think there's many much older than me, sir.'

'The man I saw on the Fell looked at least a hundred. I wish you could
tell me who he is; I feel a morbid curiosity about him.'

He went on to describe the old man in the grey coat, as minutely as he
could, dwelling on every characteristic of that singular-looking old
person; but Samuel Barlow could not identify the description with any
one in Grasmere. Yet a man of that age, seen walking on the hill-side at
eight in the morning, could hardly have come from far afield.

CHAPTER XX.

LADY MAULEVRIER'S LETTER-BAG.

Although Maulevrier had assured his grandmother that John Hammond would
take flight at the first warning of Lesbia's return, Lady Maulevrier's
dread of any meeting between her granddaughter and that ineligible lover
determined her in making such arrangements as should banish Lesbia from
Fellside, so long as there s